Wienhold B J, Andrews S S, Karlen D L
USDA-ARS, UNL, Lincoln, NE 68583-0934, USA.
Environ Geochem Health. 2004 Jun-Sep;26(2-3):89-95. doi: 10.1023/b:egah.0000039571.59640.3c.
An increasing human population is placing greater demand on soil resources, and as a result degradation is taking place in many regions of the world. This is critical because soils perform a number of essential processes including supporting food and fiber production, influencing air quality through interaction with the atmosphere, and serving as a medium for storage and purification of water. The soil quality concept was introduced to complement soil science research by making our understanding of soils more complete and helping guide the use and allocation of labor, energy, fiscal, and other inputs as agriculture intensifies and expands to meet increasing world demands. Soil quality thus provides a unifying concept for educating professionals, producers, and the public about the important processes that soils perform. It also provides an assessment tool for evaluating current management practices and comparing alternative management practices. Soil attributes comprising a minimum data set have been identified, and both laboratory and field methods have been developed for measuring them. A soil quality index is being developed to normalize measured soil quality indicator data and generate a numeric value that can be used to compare various management practices or to assess management-induced changes over time. Using previously published data, we evaluated the soil quality index as a tool to assess a wide range of management practices in the Northern Great Plains. The index ranked the treatments: grazed fertilized tame pasture > moderately grazed > ungrazed > heavily grazed > annual cropping with no-tillage > conventionally tilled crop-fallow which agrees with the way they were subjectively ranked in the publications. The soil quality index shows potential for use as a management assessment tool.
不断增长的人口对土壤资源的需求越来越大，结果世界上许多地区的土壤正在退化。这至关重要，因为土壤执行许多基本过程，包括支持粮食和纤维生产、通过与大气相互作用影响空气质量以及作为水的储存和净化介质。引入土壤质量概念是为了补充土壤科学研究，使我们对土壤的理解更加完整，并在农业集约化和扩张以满足不断增长的世界需求时，帮助指导劳动力、能源、财政和其他投入的使用和分配。因此，土壤质量为教育专业人员、生产者和公众了解土壤执行的重要过程提供了一个统一的概念。它还提供了一种评估工具，用于评估当前的管理实践并比较替代管理实践。已经确定了构成最小数据集的土壤属性，并开发了实验室和田间方法来测量它们。正在开发一种土壤质量指数，以规范测量的土壤质量指标数据，并生成一个数值，可用于比较各种管理实践或评估随时间推移管理引起的变化。利用先前发表的数据，我们评估了土壤质量指数作为评估大平原北部广泛管理实践的工具。该指数对处理进行了排名：放牧施肥的人工牧场＞适度放牧＞未放牧＞重度放牧＞免耕一年生作物种植＞传统耕作的作物休耕，这与出版物中它们的主观排名方式一致。土壤质量指数显示出作为管理评估工具的潜力。
